I'm Just a Kid
by Sonny at Twilight
Summary: Life isn't always fair when you're just a kid. Short one-shot about the cast of So Random, Portlyn, and Chad based on the song "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan.


**I saw this really amazing video on YouTube about Carly, Sam, and Freddie from the show _iCarly_ set to the song "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan. And I loved the song and the video so much that I really wanted to write a one-shot to the song, and I actually did for once. The funny thing is, it wasn't until I was editing that I realized it's kind of a downer and gives you the impression that all kids, especially these kids, are always miserable, when really, I think it's really more like saying that sometimes it's really hard to be a kid. Even a seventeen or sixteen year old kid.  
****And just in case there's confusion: the words in bold are the names of the poor kid I'm currently telling you about, the words centered and in italics are the song lyrics the writing is currently relating to, and the regular words are the actual story.  
****Hope you enjoy. :-) **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Sonny with a Chance_, Embassy Suites, _Final Destination 4_, the band Simple Plan or their song "I'm Just a Kid." **

**_----_**

I'm Just a Kid

**-Tawni-**

_I woke up, it was seven  
__Waited 'til eleven  
__Just to figure out that no one would call_

Tawni, completely dressed and made up for the day, was sitting on the edge of her bed with her cell phone resting in the palms of her hands. Her eyes were fixed on the silent, offensive little phone, ignoring the stinging numbness she'd been feeling in her legs and behind for the past thirty minutes because she hadn't moved for two hours.

She glanced away from the phone for two seconds to check the clock hanging on her wall in front of her. 10:59.

She would stop waiting in one more minute.

Tawni had been up since seven o'clock this morning, taken a shower, gotten dressed, and had done her hair and makeup by about nine o'clock, and had now just been waiting.

Her eyes flickered up again and sighed when the clock read eleven o'clock. It was time to get to work.

Tawni unfolded her legs and winced when the tingly feeling intensified all the way through both of her legs. But once her legs were finally "awake" enough to walk, she grabbed her purse and trudged out the front door to her car.

Her boyfriend, Mason, was away for two more weeks while he shot a movie, and he was supposed to call her. And yet, there was still no call to speak of.

_I think I've got a lot of friends  
__But I don't hear from them_

On top off all that, she hadn't heard from all of her old friends from her hometown in weeks. Had they forgotten her?

Tawni slammed the door shut as hard as she could allow herself to with her brand new car and started up the engine.

_Sonny's_ old friends had no problem calling _Sonny_ once a week or more. And afterwards it was always at least a solid hour of Tawni's time, working to tune out Sonny's stories from home and how her friends were doing.

Why could she have that and Tawni couldn't?

_What's another night all alone?  
__When you're spending every day on your own_

Knowing she'd be coming home to an empty house once again after work, she backed the car out of the garage. Tawni felt lonely already as she drove towards Stage Three full of her friends. Too bad they weren't the friends she wanted to be with.

How was it possible to feel so alone surrounded by so many people?

**-Nico-**

_And here it goes  
__I'm just a kid  
__And life is a nightmare_

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Nico said as he was painfully dragged away by his ear by Murphy, the crazy security guard. He'd been busted again for drinking straight out of the frozen yogurt machine, only this time he'd been caught without his partner in crime, Grady. He'd had to go it alone after Grady accidentally broke one of the weird figurines on Miss Bitterman's desk and was forced to stay after and clean up.

_I'm just a kid  
__I know that it's not fair_

"You're banned for two weeks from using the frozen yogurt machine, _and _the new ice cream machine," Murphy ordered after finally releasing Nico's ear. "And if I catch you or your little friend doing it again, I'll make you two wash my car."

"But that's not even fair!" Nico argued.

"Too bad! I'm the adult with all the authority!" Murphy cackled as he walked out of the Commissary and back to his post.

_Nobody cares  
__Cause I'm alone  
__And the world is having more fun than me_

Nico frowned and wished his best friend were there to make the situation seem less of a big deal. It was almost annoying how true it was that you didn't know how much you appreciated your friend until they were gone for any amount of time.

Well, guess he'd have to settle for some ick on a bun without any frozen yogurt for lunch. He'd still have to wait a while longer for his friends to show up, though.

A couple of people from _Mackenzie Falls _walked by with their cups of ice cream and frozen yogurt, laughing, and not even intending to annoy any of the Randoms this time. Nonetheless, Nico rolled his eyes with a sigh and got the last plate of ick on a bun.

**-Portlyn-**

_And maybe when the night is dead  
__I'll crawl into my bed  
__Staring at these four walls again_

Portlyn got one last look at herself in the mirror and frowned in disgust. With all of the product washed out of her hair, and water fresh from the shower weighing down her naturally straight hair, she looked awful, in her opinion. She hated it when her hair was straight because it made her look weird. At least, that's what she'd been told.

She finally stepped away from the mirror in her bathroom and crawled under the dark red covers on her bed. She looked around the walls of her room while she tried to relax her brain so she could get to sleep.

Portlyn cringed and covered her ears childishly when she heard the yelling voices of her parents in the bedroom next to hers. She'd been hoping that by the time she got out of the shower they'd have been done fighting. Or at least that one of them would've already stormed out of the house promising, as always, to never return. Her hands couldn't block out the muffled shouting enough to even be able to think about sleeping.

_I'll try to think about the last time  
__I had a good time_

Portlyn sat up in bed and hurriedly rooted through her bedside table's drawer until she found her old MP3 player. Quickly, she put the ear buds in, switched it on to a soothing piano piece, turned the volume up, and threw the covers over her head. Now she couldn't hear a single voice.

The music couldn't relax her though, so she tried to get comfortable on her soft bed and attempted thinking happy thoughts. She tried to remember the last time she'd been truly happy, and could only think of all the times before her and her parents had moved to California for her acting job. That had been before they'd had a ton of money, and before her mom and dad started fighting constantly.

Portlyn would give anything for a time machine.

_Everyone's got somewhere to go  
__And they're gonna leave me here on my own_

Over the intricate piano piece playing in her ears came the distinct sound of the heavy front door slamming shut and making the house shudder. There went one parent. Portlyn braced herself for the second slam, and sighed when she heard it.

One of her parents, usually her dad would probably be spending the night in the nearby Embassy Suites, while the other, her mom, went for a drive around the block to cool down.

Portlyn squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over onto her side, curling into a tiny ball and praying sleep would come soon.

**-Grady-**

_And here it goes  
__I'm just a kid  
__And life is a nightmare_

Grady waved his hand frantically through the air when Miss Bitterman asked the answer to problem number seven. "Ooh, ooh, I know it!" Grady announced, hopping in his seat.

This was the one day Grady knew the answer and was excited to answer it, and the one day when he probably should've left well enough alone.

Miss Bitterman looked at Grady through her new prescription glasses she'd recently had to get after her birthday. She fixed him with a glare so scary looking that you almost couldn't even notice the sleepless bags underneath her soulless eyes.

"What is it, Brady?" Miss Bitterman snapped, not caring enough to get the first consonant in his name right.

_I'm just kid  
__I know that it's not fair_

"It's actually _G_rady, Miss Bitterman," Grady corrected her cheerfully.

The intensity of her glare got scarier and Grady started regretting even coming to class today.

In the back of the room, Nico was concerned for his friend, while Tawni took advantage of the distraction to browse the internet on her phone.

After a few seconds, Miss Bitterman lived up to her name and bit out, "What's your answer?"

Grady shrunk down into his chair and tried smiling weakly. The answer had fled from his brain already, just to get away from Miss Bitterman. "Uh… ten?"

"Wrong!" their extremely bitter teacher barked at Grady.

"Eleven!" he hurriedly tried again desperately.

"Wrong! Go stand in the corner!" Miss Bitterman ordered.

"Why?" Grady asked helplessly. All he'd done was make a mistake.

"For acting smart!"

"But I didn't even answer it right," he protested.

"Now!" She pointed a bony finger towards the left corner of the room.

_Nobody cares  
__Cause I'm alone  
__And the world is having more fun than me_

Grady hastily stood up and speed-walked to the corner to avoid getting his head literally bitten off by his less-than-unfriendly teacher.

He stared at the wall in front of him, already feeling bored and terribly alone.

Behind him, he could hear Tawni giggling over something for about ten seconds before the snap of a ruler hitting Miss Bitterman's desk abruptly ended it.

"Now, can anyone _else_ tell me what the square root of 144 is?" Miss Bitterman questioned in a deceivingly cheery voice.

Grady settled in for a _long_ stand in the corner.

**-Zora-**

_What the heck is wrong with me?  
__Don't fit in with anybody  
__How did this happen to me?_

Zora yawned and climbed into her sarcophagus for a nice nap before rehearsal, noticing the usual disbelieving headshake from Tawni before the door closed.

It was almost more than a little annoying now that her cast mates knew that she was no longer just hanging out in the sarcophagus, but was also taking naps in it. Zora couldn't help it though. It was the only place where she actually felt comfortable sleeping anymore ever since every little sound at night started scaring the tar (and sleep) right out of her.

Just one more thing to add to the "Ways Zora Doesn't fit in" list. Number nine hundred ninety-nine: is nocturnal. That list just kept getting longer and longer.

_Wide awake, I'm bored  
__And I can't fall asleep_

Later that night, Zora was still tired since she only got about two hours of sleep in the day combined, but she was still wide awake.

She sat at the family dining room table with only the light in the corner on to fill the darkness. It was midnight and the rest of the house was sound asleep, except for Zora. Her left elbow was propping up her head and her right pinky finger was tracing a ring around the half empty glass of hot chocolate in front of her.

Zora so badly wished she could go to sleep, but she couldn't. She couldn't let herself.

_And every night is the worst night ever  
__I'm just a kid_

Ever since she'd seen a freaky thriller movie with the rest of the Lancaster family, she couldn't go to sleep without imagining Death itself coming into her room to do away with her by loosening the floorboards in her room or releasing a shelf full of heavy books onto her face. Zora could only sleep without worrying at the studio, in the sarcophagus because she felt safe there. Not to mention, she didn't worry about Death during the day. It was only at night that the idea of a freak accident killing her scared her into staying awake.

Talk about your awful, paranoid nights.

Darn her parents for letting her watch _Final Destination 4_.

**-Chad-**

_I'm just a kid  
__I'm just a kid  
__I'm just a kid  
__I'm just a kid  
__I'm just a kid  
__And life is a nightmare_

Sighing, Chad put his phone back down for the fourth time in a row. The nerve he managed to scrounge up every five minutes or so disappeared as soon as the girl on the other end of the line answered, which bugged Chad to no end. She was just a girl. No different from every other female on the planet, and certainly not that much different from the other girls he'd dated before. So this shouldn't be such a problem.

He determinedly picked up the phone, dialed the same number again, waited while it rang, and then hung up and threw it angrily down on his bed after someone answered.

By this point, Sonny probably thought she was either being stalked or viciously pranked, seeing as this was now the fifth time she'd been hung up on in the past hour.

_I'm just a kid  
__I know that it's not fair_

Chad felt like pulling his hair out despite how much his agent and director would hate him for doing so. Surprisingly, his problem now was more important than his hair.

He felt like a scared little kid too afraid to go up to the scariest house on the block on Halloween again.

He'd been lying to himself. Sonny Munroe wasn't _just_ another girl. She was special.

_Nobody cares  
__Cause I'm alone_

He sighed and turned away from his phone once and for all. It was true. She was special. Too special. It was a relationship and a heart he couldn't mess up. A chance he couldn't take. This was one thing Chad wouldn't let himself get his own way on.

_And the world is  
__Nobody wants to be alone in the world_

So he gave up, making it a total of two lonely people wishing they could take the chance but never could that night.

**-Sonny-**

_I'm just a kid  
__And life is a nightmare_

"Sonny! I don't want to have to tell you again to clean your room and get those dishes out of your room before you give us cockroaches!" Connie Munroe shouted as her daughter rushed out the door.

Sonny felt like screaming after getting picked on for every single little thing by her mom for the past week. She'd never been happier to drive away from home and get to work at Condor Studios.

Connie was in one of those nightmarish moods where suddenly the house was so cluttered to her that it made _her_ want to start screaming. Definitely a time when being out of the way and out of the house for a while was a good thing.

_I'm just a kid  
__I know that it's not fair_

Unfortunately, though, Sonny had overslept (another thing she'd gotten a light scolding for) and was now late for work. This also meant that the parking lot in front of Stage Three was full, and she now had to park farther from the entrance than she cared to, and run the long distance to the door.

_Nobody cares  
__Cause I'm alone  
__And the world is  
__Nobody wants to be alone in the world_

Sonny continued running down the halls until she finally reached the place that wasn't usually better than her warm home, but hopefully would be today. She was wrong.

As soon as she opened the door to Miss Bitterman's classroom, Sonny discovered that Miss Bitterman was in an extraordinarily bad mood as she was sent to the corner for coming in late. She noticed Grady standing alone in the front corner as she walked to her new "desk" in the back corner near the door.

Alright, so home actually _would've _been better than spending class alone in a corner as a nearly-adult sixteen year old girl.

Normally someone would've objected to the harshness of Miss Bitterman's punishments by now, but no one dared to mess with her today. Because a bitter teacher like her without any sleep was not one to be trifled with.

_Nobody cares  
__Cause I'm alone  
__And the world is having more fun than me_

The rest of Sonny's day wasn't much better at all. She slipped in the hallway right before the wet floor sign was put up, kept forgetting her lines in rehearsal, and was stuck with ick on a stick for lunch since ick on a bun (the more popular of the "ick" variety) was completely gone.

The worst part though was having Tawni brag in her ear about getting another big movie part. Not that Sonny was jealous of her getting the part. She was just jealous of the fact that for two months, Tawni would be away in England shooting a movie alongside Chad Dylan Cooper, Sonny's sort of secret crush. Lovely.

_Tonight  
__I'm all alone tonight  
__Nobody cares tonight  
__Cause I'm just a kid tonight_

Sonny wasn't sure whether to be glad or disappointed when she found her mom's note on their kitchen counter. Apparently, her mom had some errands she needed to run, so she'd be gone for a few hours, leaving Sonny all alone.

"_Don't forget to clean your room_," her mom added at the end of the note.

Crumpling up the note, Sonny decided on feeling "gladly, disappointingly alone." She tossed the crumpled note onto the couch where she'd draped her jacket. She could pick it up before her mom came home.

After a long, bad day, Sonny kicked off her shoes and fell back on the couch with a tired groan.

Life sure could suck when you were a kid.

Feeling a wrinkled paper lump under her head, Sonny picked up the note again and tried throwing it into the waste basket several feet away, watching as it bounced off the rim and onto the recently vacuumed floor.

Life could _really _suck when you were just a kid.

**_----_**

**Thanks for reading, clicking on the pretty little review button and giving your opinion is always appreciated, and I know, I know, I know my stories have not been updated in a woefully long time and have now collected dust but I promise they will be finished some day. Can't make any promises right now, only the guarantee that they'll eventually be finished. Also, there is a possible Halloween special in the works if I can finish it in time, so we'll see. Hint: it's definitely not like anything I've done before which may or may not be a very good hint, but whatever.  
Enough of that. Thanks for reading, have a good night. :-) **


End file.
